Barclays brings free Wi-Fi to branches

Barclays
is rolling out free Wi-Fi across 1,500 of its branches in the UK, following a trial of the
technology from BT.

Barclays hopes providing the service will bring in more customers and allow it to showcase the
mobile solutions it offers to account holders.

“We’ve been listening to our customers about how we can make banking easier for them and they
tell us they like the idea of mobile banking, but would often value being shown how it works,” said
Ashok Vaswani, CEO of Barclays retail and business banking division.

“We are always keen to show our customers how easy our mobile apps are to use so we are now
rolling out free
Wi-Fi across our Barclays branches, and our staff say this will help them give demonstrations
using our customers' mobiles and tablets. We hope that by providing this free service our customers
will be able to instantly download and use all our mobile apps as we are on hand to show them
how.”

Barclays has chosen a white label Wi-Fi service from BT, enabling them to brand the wireless
hotspots as BarclaysFreeWifi.

Work began six months ago with trials across three of its high street locations to ensure this
was a service customers were looking for. After proving to be successful, the roll-out commenced
and more than 800 Barclays branches already have the free Wi-Fi hotspots installed.

“Whether it’s in the branch or through remote channels such as mobile banking, the technology
now exists for organisations to connect their customers to the right people and the right
information in a seamless, cost-effective way,” added Luis Alvarez, CEO of BT’s
Global Services division, which has been handling the deployment alongside BT Openreach.

“It’s no secret that banks are facing some of the toughest challenges of any sector, so it’s
great to see forward-thinking companies like Barclays prioritising their investments, so they can
deliver great service for their customers as well as the bottom line.”

The roll-out is continuing but Barclays and BT plan on having completed the project by the end
of April.

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